Peter graduated in mathematics at Cardiff University, Wales, where he
stayed on to carry out research in solar engineering from 1981. From
1987, he worked as a software developer in the Clinical Trials Service
Unit at the University of Oxford. The ISIS group at the CTSU carried out
what were, at the time, the largest clinical trials of medical
interventions ever executed. With tens of thousands of patients
recruited from intensive care units around the world, the trials were
able to demonstrate the efficacy of emergency treatments for heart
attacks such as streptokinase, a clot-dissolving drug that had
previously been dismissed as too dangerous to use. While in Oxford, he
pursued what had previously been a private interest in philosophy by
studying under Dr. Michael Lockwood at the Oxford University Department
for External Studies (now renamed and endowed as Kellogg College), and
sitting in on seminars and lectures in philosophy. His main interest was
consciousness and the mind-body problem.

Peter will be chairing the Science Fiction sessions of
DUXU16 (Design of
User eXperience and Usability) in Toronto, July 17–22, 2016 (an
associate conference of HCII16 (Human Computer Interface International
2016). Besides sci-fi per se, this will also cover blue-sky research
that can benefit from the exploration of possible scenarios in the
manner of science fiction. One of the topics to be covered is the
problem of controlling machines whose intelligence matches or exceeds
that of humans, but which may lack any capacity for empathy or moral
awareness. This reflects the existential threat posed by uncontrolled
AI, which is recognized in the Lifeboat Foundation’s
AIShield program.